


Heat in Cairo

by edenforest



Series: I feel you in my dreams [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Seduction, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, gallya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 08:24:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6187327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenforest/pseuds/edenforest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon watched them over his newspaper. It wasn’t a fight and it wasn’t strictly seduction either. It was somewhere in the middle. It was something that made both Gaby and Illya restless; their nostrils flared and they searched out a better grip on the floor like they were going to attack. It made them circle each other like animals in heat, but instead of mating they just intimidated and stared at each other. It happened from time to time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat in Cairo

Gaby walked along the quiet hallway in a crappy building. The floor and walls were dirty. Gaby felt like it was the completely wrong place in her white designer dress. She knocked on the door and Napoleon opened it. He stepped aside and let Gaby in. Inside was cleaner. Floors were clean, as were the walls. The furniture had been cleaned and it smelled fresh. Wind was waving the thin curtains and cooling the air inside. Still it was warm.

From the window Illya glanced at her over his shoulder, as if Napoleon would have let anybody except Gaby in. He sat behind the telescope in a revolving armchair.

“Has something happened?” Gaby asked and walked toward the window. Napoleon had rolled up his sleeves, but Illya had taken his shirt off and was wearing only a white undershirt with his trousers. Gaby looked at him little too long just to notice that. She peeked through the window in the warm day and leaned on the windowsill.

“No,” Illya said and leaned away from the telescope.

Gaby nodded. When she started walking again she twisted herself inside her dress. It didn’t feel good.

Napoleon sat in an armchair on the other side of the room and picked up a newspaper. They couldn’t do anything but watch and wait. Gaby walked around the room. Her dress felt better when she moved. There were a few books on the table. Maybe she could read something while waiting. She poured herself a glass of water and twisted herself again inside of her dress.

“Do you have fleas?” Napoleon asked and grinned.

“I feel like this dress is made from fleas,” Gaby huffed. She walked to the other end of the room and entered the bedroom. She leaned out of the window for a while and let the wind cool her face. The dress itched and it was annoying. Gaby turned back towards the room and saw Illya’s light blue dress shirt on the chair.

Illya leaned back in his chair when he stopped watching through the telescope. He turned the chair to face the room. In the corner of his eye he saw Gaby coming from the bedroom and he turned to look at her. Her hair was in a ponytail, she had dangling earrings and sandals, but instead of her white dress she was wearing his shirt. It was as long as the short dress had been on her and she had rolled the sleeves up to her elbow. She grabbed a book from the table. Illya swallowed. If Gaby had bare feet and her hair had been messy she would’ve looked like she had just rolled out of bed after lovemaking and put her lover’s shirt on in her still damp and rosy skin. His shirt.

Gaby glanced to Illya. ”I’m borrowing your shirt,” she said, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“What is wrong with your dress?” Illya asked.

“It itches,” Gaby said. “So much that it’s all I can think of. And because I didn’t choose the dress myself at the store or today to wear, I feel like I shouldn’t suffer in it until I leave from here.”

“And you are going to use my shirt?” Illya asked.

“Yes,” Gaby sighed. ”It’s not like you are using it. It was just thrown in the chair there.”

“Really? Thrown?” Illya asked.

”No,” Gaby confessed. She sat in an armchair not that far from Illya and the shirt fluffed around her. “It was folded on the chair,” she said with a little grin on her lips, “very neatly.” Somehow Illya’s neatness was so alluring to Gaby. She wondered was he as neat and precise in bed or was that that place where he broke his pattern and was completely opposite; messy and rough and carefree. Every time she saw Illya’s folded clothes or organized things she thought of sex with him.

Illya frowned. ”Well, put it back there when you are finished with it,” he requested.

“You know I won’t,” Gaby said carelessly, but at the same time smiling almost seductively. “I will probably drop it on the floor,” she sighed, “in a pile.”

Illya took one deep breath and stared at Gaby. She was so arrogant that she almost made him blush. And it annoyed him.

Napoleon watched them over his newspaper. He felt how the mood in the room had changed, so thick that it could be cut with a knife. It happened from time to time. It usually started with something completely normal, like in this case: a shirt. And then it changed into a mood. It wasn’t a fight and it wasn’t strictly seduction either. It was somewhere in the middle. It was something that made both Gaby and Illya restless; their nostrils flared and they searched out a better grip on the floor like they were going to attack. It made them circle each other like animals in heat, but instead of mating they just intimidated and stared at each other. This wasn’t the first time it happened. Although Napoleon started to wish that maybe it could be the last. He couldn’t deny that it was entertaining, but he was starting to get restless for them.

They had been circling each other for five months now. And in the humid heat of Cairo, Napoleon thought they should stop. They should just let go of their fears or whatever stupid reason that was keeping them apart. When Gaby and Illya clashed together to find out who won their stupid seduction game Napoleon thought that there were only losers as long as they didn’t realize what they were doing.

When Gaby said she was going to drop Illya’s shirt on the floor, she said it like she was telling how she went to bed at night and touched herself and thought of Illya. There was softness and lust in her voice and yet she was speaking of laundry. Gaby did that; she said something and meant a completely different thing. And she did it because Illya reacted to that. And Illya’s behavior affected her and then it wasn’t a shirt anymore; it was an object of power. And both wanted to win, because they were too stubborn to realize that in a tie they would both win. When one of them won, it meant that the winner got a little satisfaction from being stronger than the other, a little pride, maybe a grin. But a tie would probably end in bed; they could finally rip the clothes off each other and fuck away all the pressure they had built for five months. They could pant against each other’s skin and maybe finally be at peace.

Napoleon shook his head and grinned. He was sure that this round would end up like all the others; there would be only one winner which really meant two losers.

Gaby stood up and got her water glass from the table. She sipped and spilled some on the shirt. Napoleon wasn’t sure was it an accident or was she doing it on purpose. Gaby wiped the splash and noticed Illya was looking and frowning.

“It’s only water,” Gaby pointed out.

“I did not say anything,” Illya said.

“I will get it cleaned for you,” Gaby promised. “So don’t worry about it.”

“It is a shirt,” Illya said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, you are keeping watch all the time,” Gaby accused. “So apparently it does.”

“It does not,” Illya almost grunted. Obviously the temperature was making them extra anxious.

“There isn’t anything else I could wear, so you just have to deal with it,” Gaby said.

Illya stood up and walked around. Napoleon grinned. Now they were both standing, soon they would stare.

”Why don’t you wear your own dress?” Illya asked

”I told you, it itches,” Gaby said. She set her glass on the table and took a step closer to Illya. “And I’m not wearing it until I leave from here,” she said. Then her determined posture bent and when she stepped closer to Illya her movements were soft and flexible, like a cat’s. Everything Gaby was doing said that she was going to win today. There was a winner’s smugness in her gait.

“There are only two options,” Gaby said when she stopped in front of Illya. “Either I’m going to wear your shirt; maybe spill something on it, wrinkle it, leave my scent on it and then discard it somewhere.” Gaby tilted her head and lifted her determined chin. “Or I can walk around in my underwear all day.”

Illya shifted his weight slowly from one leg to the other. It was warm and Gaby’s eyes were staring at him so intensely. He couldn’t think anything else than Gaby wearing only her underwear, Gaby leaving her scent on his shirt, Gaby opening his belt and licking his lower lip, Gaby in his bed.

“So how is it, Illya?” Gaby breathed out his name like a loving sigh. Napoleon was sure that when they eventually did end up in bed that was the way she was going to sigh Illya’s name in his ear right before he made her come. It was like she was practicing.

Illya swallow slowly. He realized that his hands were clenched into fists, even if he wasn’t angry. His heart was beating faster. The heat made Gaby’s cheeks red. She looked more and more like she would just get up from messy sheets with a pale love bite on her neck.

Gaby lifted her brows and waited. The longer Illya looked at her and didn’t answer, the faster she breathed. She hoped that he would answer already and stop looking at her. Gaby could feel her red cheeks and she feared that it would spread to her whole face.

“Wear what you like,” Illya said and took a step back. “We have work.”

Gaby smiled a little smug smile and was relieved when Illya backed down. He returned to his chair by the window and Gaby to her chair by the coffee table. Illya looked at the telescope, Gaby picked up her book. For a moment there was calm.

But Napoleon knew better; it was the eye of the storm.

There was nothing happening in the other end of the telescope. The wind had died; the air in the room was hot and humid. Illya didn’t care that much for the heat and Gaby was restless for no reason. She separated her thighs when they were sweating and pushed them apart. She leaned forward to take her sandals off and didn’t notice Illya watching her. Her bare feet transformed her closer and closer to that Gaby who just got up from the bed, her body relaxed and satisfied.

Gaby lifted her feet onto the edge of the coffee table to make the air move around her thighs. She bent her head back and when she lifted it back up, her eyes wandered to Illya, like they usually did. And he was looking at her. Except he was looking between her legs. Gaby felt like she should been insulted, but she wasn’t. If it had been somebody else looking at her, she would close her legs and throw her book at the person. There would be a bleeding corner on somebody’s eye. But Illya looking only made her all tingly. He had a soft and a little desperate look in his eyes. Gaby wondered would he have that same look if she wasn’t wearing underwear. Or if she was touching herself.

Illya knew he shouldn’t look. But he couldn’t not look. Gaby had set her legs up right in front of him. He could see Gaby’s light pants. He swallowed slowly and tried not to think everything that was on the other side. His upper lip was sweating.

Napoleon didn’t even pretend that he was reading his newspaper. He leaned in his chair and wondered how the situation was going to defuse itself. This wasn’t somebody saying something and meaning something else anymore. This was Illya staring between Gaby’s legs and Gaby noticing that. He wanted to see how red Illya would turn when he got caught. Napoleon was pretty sure that sometimes they were so caught up in their silly game that they forgot that they weren’t actually alone. Gaby would never keep her legs open for Illya to watch if she remembered that Napoleon was in the room.

Gaby cleared her throat lightly. Illya woke from his thoughts and lifted his eyes to her face. Gaby tilted her head and took an inquisitive and judging look on her face. And Illya acted exactly like he was supposed to: he lowered his gaze, turned quickly away, embarrassed, and returned to the telescope. The back of his neck was red.

Gaby grinned. She was happy but also feeling a little guilty. She really didn’t want to make Illya embarrassed. For a brief moment she wanted to say she was sorry. But then Illya had stared at her, so it’s not like he was totally faultless. Gaby tried to keep her eyes on the book, but she didn’t remember anything that she was reading. It was too hot to read. And she was so restless. She felt like she needed somebody to fix her; open all the knots inside of her, carry her to the bed and made sure she didn’t have to get up until she was just a panting mess of relaxed muscles . She looked at Illya, who had turned slightly sideways, but not back towards the room. She gazed at his shoulders and smiled a little. It was nice to see some skin. Usually she didn’t see this much. Gaby liked his arms and hands and imagined them touching her. She had to suppress her sigh. He could probably fix her; make her momentarily forget everything around her, make her weightless and free.

Illya turned back to the room. The light from outside was too bright to look and he dared to turn his face back even if it meant Gaby would smirk at him. But she didn’t. Her eyes were closed. The light sifted through the thin curtains and turned it a soft glow. Gaby had lifted her legs on the chair; they were chastely together and allowed him to stay a gentleman. She was leaning against the armrest and the book was closed on her lap. Illya’s lips parted when he looked at her, wondering if she would wear his shirt afterwards if they ever made love. Would she walk around wearing it, relaxed, smiling that little smile of hers? Would she sit in an armchair and open her thighs? Would she touch herself or would Illya go to her and do it himself? Of course he would go to her, how could he not? He would press his head between her thighs and make her moan his name. And Gaby’s fingers would tangle in his hair and one of her legs would rub against his back.

Illya set himself better in the chair. It was too warm to think things like that. He breathed out and tried not to notice that his trousers were getting little tighter.

“Is something happening?” Gaby asked and opened her eyes.

“No,” Illya said quickly and cleared his throat, until he realized that Gaby was talking about the mission.

“You didn’t look,” Gaby pointed out.

“I just did,” Illya assured her.

Gaby pouted her lips, she didn’t believe him. She stood up, dropped the book on the chair and walked softly to Illya. He was expecting her to nudge the chair with her hip and turn it aside. But then he had forgotten that it was a hot and humid and weird day. And Gaby didn’t turn the chair, she pushed his legs apart with her knee and set it on the edge of the chair, between his legs, and leaned over him to look through the telescope.

Napoleon grinned and stood up. This was so close to the point that nobody would have to win to be a winner that he decided to take a step back. Napoleon opened the bathroom door and went inside to run cool water on his neck. Maybe Gaby and Illya could take the time to let go of things and just go with it.

The sudden closeness made Illya a little uneasy at first. It was so warm and his body wasn’t taking orders from him anymore. But Gaby wasn’t really touching him. She merely forced him to lean back with his legs spread. Her knee was brushing against his thigh, but it was only little whisper of a touch. So he got used to it. He could smell the sweet scent of her warm skin. He would wanted to taste it.

Gaby leaned away from the telescope, but didn’t move away from the chair or Illya. She looked at Illya, who was almost under her, and tilted her head. “I’m sorry if I’m not respecting your personal space,” she said and didn’t mean it at all. She liked Illya like this, under her, lips slightly parted, looking nervous. So real and soft. Maybe it was the Illya he was all the time inside, even when he was serious and efficient KGB agent.

“I have gotten used that you don’t respect me,” Illya said.

Gaby frowned. “That’s not true,” she said softly and truthfully. “I respect you. Just not your personal space.”

“Not now at least,” Illya breathed out and looked her in the eyes. He was starting to crack. All he needed from Gaby was some sign that she was serious and not teasing him and he would yield.

Gaby shrugged her shoulders inside of Illya’s shirt and snorted.

“What if I would do that?” Illya asked quietly.

“I don’t think you would,” Gaby almost whispered.

“You think that?” Illya asked. His nostrils flared a bit. Maybe he wasn’t after all ready to yield. Maybe Gaby should yield.

“Yes,” Gaby said. She look beautiful and a little smug; rosy cheeks and sharp eyes. Then she reached back to the telescope and laughed a little because she didn’t think Illya would dare to invade her personal space.

Illya lifted his hand without a warning to Gaby’s thigh, slid his fingers on the inner side and squeezed. Gaby straightened her back. They both seemed a little surprised and baffled by the sudden touch.

Illya leaned in his chair, Gaby hovering over him, one knee between his legs, her hands taking hold of the armrests. Illya’s hand slid slowly up on Gaby’s inner thigh. Very slowly. They were looking at each other, not intimidating, just looking. Both were searching for some change of the other’s face. Something that told the other was showing something real. Both had their lips a little parted, hearts were racing little faster, both wanted more, but were afraid to take the first step.

His hand rose so high that it was brushing against her pants he was staring at earlier. His hand stopped. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to continue, he did. But Illya couldn’t slide his hand between her legs without Gaby actually wanting that.

Gaby realized that she was holding her breath when Illya’s hand finally stopped. He had to take a quick gasp and then her cover cracked. She swallowed nervously and her eyes were suddenly full of need. She quickly licked her lips. She gave in and let Illya take the lead. She yielded.

Illya raised himself a little in his chair. There was a change in Gaby. She softened. His fingers moved slowly. He was staring Gaby in the eyes and turned his hand. Gaby sounded like she was out of breath when Illya’s finders brushed gently on her underwear. Her lips parted more and Illya was sure she was leaning closer.

Napoleon opened the bathroom door. When he had gone there, Gaby and Illya didn’t seem to even notice him, but now they jumped away from each other. He was sure they would’ve already got something done. They were quiet so long that he had imagined they already pulled back in their own corners to lick their wounds. He wasn’t going to take the fault for interrupting them. He had given them plenty of time.

They were still both in the same chair by the window. But when he opened the door, Gaby jumped up from much closer to Illya than she had been before and Illya pulled his hand away. Napoleon didn’t see from where, but he was sure it wasn’t any place his hand really should be during work.

Napoleon returned to his chair. Gaby walked quickly to the other end of the room, curled in a chair by the table. Illya sat up and leaned forward and turned toward the window. They were both seemingly embarrassed. It looked like Illya had won, but as usual both of them looked like losers. Illya was grumpy and frustrated. His jaw was tight and he appeared like he wanted to break some furniture. His posture indicated that he was probably covering the fact that he had an erection. Gaby didn’t look angry like Illya, she looked wild and frantic. She sat in a curl and seemed like she needed a comforting hug. But also as if somebody did try to hug her, she would punch them. They both looked like they could benefit from cold showers and perhaps a little cry in a corner.

They both quickly leered at each other. It appeared they had finally realized what they were doing. Napoleon was relieved by it. Maybe next time they would happily tie and end up in bed. They would get to release their frustrations on each other and fill some hotel room with moans and relax.

So it didn’t happen in Cairo. Napoleon wasn’t sure where they were heading next, but maybe it would happen there.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to MollokoPlus


End file.
